


Reverb

by sciencebutch



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e10 Midnight, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Repression, takes place after the events of midnight, the doctor and donna are platonic soulmates SORRY i dont make the rules, the doctor deals with the mortifying ordeal of being known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 10:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20424674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: He can feel it in him, that thing from Midnight. It's inside him, seizing his vocal cords, making him naught but an echo.Donna helps the Doctor find his voice.





	Reverb

**Author's Note:**

> basically i watched end of time and got really sad and cried and wrote my feelings w this. also we never got closure for midnight and im upset So

He can’t move.

His body is tense, like a pulled back bowstring, tense and still and not moving and _he can’t move_. Can barely breathe, only forcefully tug in small, weak inhalations that leave him feeling more empty than he was before he took them. His eyes burn, burn and sting, but he doesn’t blink, because he can’t move.

That _thing _is in him again, he can feel it wriggling and niggling in his veins, teeming under his skin, setting his nerves aflame with stillness.

He wants to move, he wants to move _so bad_. This body is bad at staying still. It’s like his neurons are jumper cables bolting electricity into him so he leaps and dances and dashes around. The _thing_ is made of rubber, it’s made of rubber and it stops those pulses. But the impulses remain and he wants to move but he _can’t_.

Another swift breath, leaving his lungs wanting. When one’s lungs are empty, it always feels like you’re about to cave in, your ribs creaking and groaning, like there’s something heavy on your chest.

His hearts pump in his ears, a steady rhythm. _One-two-three-four_.

_One-two-three-four._

One heart copies the other as it beats, one pumps and the other follows in its stead. _One_-one-_two-_two-_three_-three-_four-_four. His voice copies and his hearts copy and that’s all he is, a copy, an echo.

A whisper on the wind.

_He can’t move_.

(_“We must not look at goblin men, _

_We must not buy their fruits: _

_Who knows upon what soil they fed _

_Their hungry thirsty roots?_)

The _thing_’s roots are in him, he can _feel _them, prickling over and in and through his skin, hungrily gnawing on his flesh, thirstily lapping at his blood. They constrict his vocal cords and slither up his throat and out his mouth and he’s suffocating, and he can’t breathe and he wants them out out _out_, wants to scratch his skin off to be rid of them but he _can’t move_.

What soil, indeed.

_That’s how he does it. _(That’s how he does it_._)

_He makes you fight. _(He makes you fight.)

_Creeps into your head. _(Creeps into your head.)

_And whispers_: (And whispers:)

_Listen. _(Listen.)

_Just listen. _(Just listen.)

_That’s him_. (That’s him_._)

_Inside_.

Inside and wriggling and writhing and thrashing about, seizing his mind and stripping all control away. He has no control. No control.

_He_ _can’t move_.

A keening exhale, pitiful and panicked and pathetic, sweeps over his teeth and past his stony lips. It’s a whine that melds with the occasional ringing of the TARDIS’ cloister bell, so quiet, a mere whisper on the wind.

Someone hears it, nonetheless.

“Doctor?” a voice calls out. Donna. She should be asleep.

But so should he. The echoes kept him awake.

(_Bodies so hot, with blood, and _pain.)

He thought it was gone, he thought it was _gone_. But it’s still here, still has its hungry thirsty roots gnarled around his throat. His voice is knotted and tangled and not his. Nothing is his anymore.

He’s so _helpless_. He’s never been helpless before, never been so without control.

“Doctor? Doctor, where are you?”

He had jolted awake from his dreams, had stumbled stiffly to the control room and collapsed behind the pillar, hunched in and around himself. It’s uncomfortable, this position, lanky arms strewn akimbo. But he can’t move. He _can’t_.

Footsteps rattle over the grating as Donna seeks him out. She finds him, sat on the floor. Eyes wide and stomach caved in, hollow from the lack of oxygen.

Donna sits by him wordlessly, her thigh almost touching his.

He doesn’t want to be seen like this. Weak and helpless and without control. The thought makes his chest feel like it’s being scooped out by a melon-baller. He wants to tell her to go away, but he can’t move and his voice isn’t his. Nothing is his anymore he’s just a facsimile, a hollowed out piece of flesh for the _thing _to inhabit. 

“How can I help?” Donna’s voice is gentle, rough edges sanded away by solicitude. No sour pity resides in her words, no bitter judgement.

His mouth grants a mangled sound access to the atmosphere, his sad excuse of an answer.

“Doctor,” her hand grabs his. He doesn’t react. “Doctor, listen to me,” her voice is so soft, and void of criticism, “That _thing_, whatever it was, it’s gone. You’re safe, yeah? It’s gone,” she pauses, and there’s no sound save for the breathing of the TARDIS. “See? No echo.”  
  
No echo. He grunts weakly. Her thumb swirls circles on the back of his hand. The touch distracts him for a second, and he blinks.

“Here - try and take a deep breath, that always helps me. In through the nose, out through the mouth,” she does it herself, an exhibition of instinct, one seemingly so needless but helpful all the same. 

He shakily follows her lead, the air rasping and choking past his windpipe, his stomach heaving with the effort.

“That’s good - keep doing that, it’ll get easier, I promise. Deep breaths.” 

“Deep breaths,” he repeats without thinking. His muscles tense with fear. It’s back it’s back it’s _back_. _He can’t move can’t breathe he’s a copy an echo a whisper on the wind._

“Don’t repeat what I say, Doctor, just keep breathing,” her thumb continues its path on his hand, and he breathes in time with it. 

Four minutes and nine seconds later, the Doctor blinks, and like that his posture crumbles; his back slouches, his hands curl limply by his side. His head falls and his chin greets his sternum, and when he brings an arm up to rub at his eyes, he realizes that there are tears there; hot wet beads welling up and dribbling down.

He’s never cried in front of Donna. He sniffs and looks down and away, hoping to hide his tears behind his fringe, and he realizes he’s ashamed; embarrassed.

He doesn’t want to be seen like this. He’s the _Doctor_, insurmountable and unbreakable and _clever_. And this body hasn’t cried in front of _anybody_; he hides his nightmares in his bedroom and his breakdowns in his zero-room, and this - he -

He feels _invaded_. The Doctor scoots away from Donna, his arms shaking under his weight, still weak and wobbly.

“Doctor, Doctor, _hey_,” her voice is still so gentle. She’s so kind, even if it’s buried under roughness and self-loathing. Her arm wraps around his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she says, and he _breaks_. A sob escapes his mouth and he takes a deep shuddering breath and his throat burns.

Because it’s _not,_ it’s not _okay_. He’d almost been thrown out, almost been killed by the very species he’d vowed to protect, and he couldn’t do _anything_. His voice, his greatest asset, had been stolen and repurposed and _violated_.

He wants to throw up, wants to eject his defiled voice box from his body because it’s not his and if it’s not his why is it _in him_ and he’s gagging and sobbing and leaning into Donna now, he realizes, as she strokes his back, muttering reassurances to him.

“It’s gone, it’s gone Doctor, you’re okay, you’re safe, you’re on the TARDIS, I’m here, always will be…”

It’s another four minutes and his eyes are burning. His throat is burning. His head is burning. Donna’s nightshirt is tear-stained and damp. He takes a deep breath and sits up, swallows audibly.

“‘M sorry,” he says, before he sits up straight and dons his content facade once more, becomes the Doctor once more, unfazed and nonplussed.

His eyes are still red.

Donna’s arm falls from his back.

“Doctor,” she protests, “it’s okay to cry, you know.”

Of course it is, of course it’s okay to cry. Just not okay for him.

“Yeah,” he says. “‘Course.”

“Wanna tell me about it?” she says softly, so softly she’s almost drowned out by the discordant sounds of the TARDIS.

He doesn’t. But he does anyway. And he speaks, and he feels invaded, as if he’s betraying himself, releasing his deepest darkest secrets to the world. But who decided they needed to be secret in the first place?

“It was, it was like, like, like I was chained up, inside myself, stuck in the passenger seat as the car drove off a cliff, or something. I couldn’t_ move_, I - I - I couldn’t move. I didn’t have control, Donna, and, and I need control. I don’t like being helpless, I don’t like not having _options_. And they were about to throw me out, Donna! The human race, the species I trust and devoted my lives to helping, and - and they _betrayed _me, just because they were _scared_. And I was, I was scared too, so scared, more scared than I’ve ever been, but I _never_ resorted to murder, and I never will. Never again,” he breathes, “never again.”

Silence falls.

“Thank you for telling me,” Donna whispers.

“Yeah,” the Doctor responds as if it was the easiest thing in the world. He looks over at her for the first time, meets her eyes, and is surprised to see tears glistening back at him. She smiles a wet, watery smile.

“Come on,” she says, moving to stand up, “let’s get some sleep, yeah?”

Donna helps him up, and he stumbles on still-shaking legs.

She walks him to his room. He pauses in the threshold as she walks down the hallway.

“Donna?” he calls to her.

“Yes Doctor?”

“…Thanks,” he says.

“Anytime,” she replies.

His eyelids are heavy, as he drifts to sleep, but his hearts are light.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr!](%E2%80%9Ctenthdyketor.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)


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